Free Republic

The Obama administration approved $310 million in free legal advice to young illegal immigrants despite federal law barring charging taxpayers for helping immigrants avoid deportation, according to a new report. The Immigration Reform Law Institute said that the funding was provided to a top legal defense group to help unaccompanied alien children under the age of 18 land with a sponsor in the U.S. In 2015 and 2016, contracts reviewed by IRLI showed that several worth $310 million went to one nonprofit legal group, the Vera Institute of Justice. A top director has ties to liberal philanthropist George Soros. At...

.... immigration-asylum applications in Miami were denied at rates virtually unseen in two decades, according to data released today by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a group at Syracuse University. Immigration officials denied 86 percent of asylum applications during the 2018 fiscal year.... That's the highest denial rate in Miami since at least 2001... ... the nation saw a massive spike in asylum and immigration-court decisions in 2018, which suggests the Trump administration is pushing courts to churn through immigration cases much faster. Most of the new decisions were denials. TRAC noted that, though denial rates initially spiked when...

Illegal immigration ticked up in November, but the number of those people traveling as families shattered records, Homeland Security reported Thursday, saying it’s proof that migrants have figured out how to game the flawed U.S. immigration system. More than 25,000 people who came as part of families were snared by Border Patrol agents sneaking across the U.S.-Mexico line, and nearly 5,000 more were encountered at official border crossings where they demanded entry. Nearly 5,300 more children traveling without parents were also caught jumping the border, the government said. The 25,000 family “units,” as they’re called, are by far a record,...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday flatly rejected the idea of approving funding for President Trump’s border wall in exchange for protections for illegal immigrant “Dreamers.” “They’re two different subjects,” the California Democrat said. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are searching for a solution to a budget impasse, with Mr. Trump’s demand for $5 billion in border wall money the major hurdle right now. The president has suggested he would force a partial government shutdown unless he gets the money he’s asking for. GOP leaders on Capitol Hill are interested in delivering, but Democrats, who maintain veto powers thanks to...

The Obama administration approved $310 million in free legal advice to young illegal immigrants despite federal law barring charging taxpayers for helping immigrants avoid deportation, according to a new report. The Immigration Reform Law Institute said that the funding was provided to a top legal defense group to help unaccompanied alien children under the age of 18 land with a sponsor in the U.S. In 2015 and 2016, contracts reviewed by IRLI showed that several worth $310 million went to one nonprofit legal group, the Vera Institute of Justice. A top director has ties to liberal philanthropist George Soros.

During more than five years as a housekeeper at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., Victorina Morales has made Donald J. Trump’s bed, cleaned his toilet and dusted his crystal golf trophies. When he visited as president, she was directed to wear a pin in the shape of the American flag adorned with a Secret Service logo. Because of the “outstanding” support she has provided during Mr. Trump’s visits, Ms. Morales in July was given a certificate from the White House Communications Agency inscribed with her name. Quite an achievement for an undocumented immigrant housekeeper. Ms. Morales’s journey...

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday rejected the idea of paying for President Donald Trump’s border wall in exchange for helping hundreds of thousands of young immigrants avoid deportation. Funding for the wall — a top Trump priority — and legal protections for so-called Dreamers, a key Democratic goal, should not be linked, Pelosi said. “They’re two different subjects,” she said. Her comments came as the House and Senate approved a stopgap bill Thursday to keep the government funded through Dec. 21. The measure, approved by voice votes in near-empty chambers, now goes to the White...

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz with three other senators introduced a bill Wednesday that is aimed at fully funding a wall along the US-Mexico border... The WALL Act would fully fund the border wall by closing existing loopholes that provide illegal immigrants with federal benefits and tax credits, without affecting the benefits and tax credits used by Americans.

The 16-year-old girl stabbed to death in Long Branch in September was killed by her 20-year-old ex-boyfriend after she broke up with him and he repeatedly texted her seeking to meet, authorities said. The motive in the killing and the relationship between Bryan Cordero-Castro and Madison Wells was revealed by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office this week as Cordero-Castro was indicted on murder, stalking and weapons offenses. Authorities had previously said only Cordero-Castro and Wells knew each other, but didn’t specify the nature of their relationship. -------------------------------- Cordero-Castro, a Guatemalan citizen, is in the United States illegally, the prosecutor’s office...

People who oppose immigration often argue that migrants bring disease with them, and that they then become a burden to health systems in their new countries because they’re so sick. But that's not true, a team of experts argued in a new report released Wednesday. In fact, they point out that immigrants make up a significant portion of the healthcare work forces in their new homelands. "There is no evidence to show that migrants are spreading disease," said Dr. Paul Spiegel, who directs the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. "That is a false argument...

The House GOP leadership is responsible for blocking a pro-American immigration reform package which was backed by President Donald Trump, a top House chairman said Tuesday. The GOP leadership let the House immigration reform die in June by allowing a critical bloc of GOP legislators to split their votes between two rival reform bills, said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the retiring chairman of the House committee on the judiciary. “The strategy of having two options really let people have an off-ramp — they could vote for the more conservative bill and against the other, or vote for the second bill and...

The Honduran woman interviewed by the reporter described the free meals given to her as ‘pig food.’ “The food that they’re handing out here is terrible. Refried beans? As if they were feeding the pigs. If we don’t eat this, we will die of hunger,” the ungrateful Honduran migrant said Her sister posted video on Instagram of the two sisters in Dallas. When everyone wondered where Mirian Celaya is, the Honduran migrant who despised Mexican beans, she was already crossing to the US. And in the last hours have circulated videos of the Honduran controversy with his sister, celebrating his...

NEAR YUMA, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) - U.S. Customs and Border Protection released video on Monday of what it said was a person from Mexico dropping at least two children over the border wall near Yuma.The group of six from Guatemala were going over the border wall near the San Luis Port of Entry early Monday morning. One person in Mexico was helping the adults over the wall and then dropped the two young children while the family members waited below, BP said. The person in Mexico then took off.The wall is 18 feet high. The group of six was a...

More than 400 people illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas on Dec. 3 and surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol agents in El Paso. Agent Fidel Baca, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), told the El Paso Times that a group of men, women, and children turned themselves in to the Border Patrol along the Rio Grande levee next to the border fence in the Riverside area of the Lower Valley. Baca said that CBP agents initially detained 200 people but with the discovery of another group east of the Zaragoza Bridge, that number was later...

The Central Americans surging into the U.S. and claiming asylum look a lot more like regular illegal immigrants, eager for better jobs or to reunite with families, than traditional refugees fleeing persecution or violence back home, according to a new report Wednesday that challenges conventional wisdom on the migrants’ motives. And while they are often referred to as asylum-seekers, few of the migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — the chief sending countries — are likely to end up winning asylum in the U.S., according to the study by academics at the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis...

SAN DIEGO — Tour operators and medical and dental offices in the Mexican border city of Tijuana are reporting a slowdown in business since a caravan of Central American migrants arrived. Tourists and visitors have been canceling planned trips to the Mexican state of Baja California since the border crossing shut down briefly a week ago, and according to tour-friendly business owners, many fear getting trapped in Mexico should the crossing close again, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Sunday. Antonio Gamboa, who owns a well-known food truck park, said business has slumped 30 percent. “It’s very disappointing because everything is...

Another day, another revelation as the great fleecing of the U.S. taxpayer continues unabated. Let’s begin at the beginning.  Forty percent of Americans are now born out of wedlock.  Single parent families are associated with a long list of social maladies: “Children who grow up with only one of their biological parents (nearly always the mother) are disadvantaged across a broad array of outcomes. . . . they are twice as likely to drop out of high school, 2.5 times as likely to become teen mothers, and 1.4 times as likely to be idle — out of school and out of work...

A majority of “non-citizens,” including those with legal green card rights, are tapping into welfare programs set up to help poor and ailing Americans, a Census Bureau finding that bolsters President Trump’s concern about immigrants costing the nation. In a new analysis of the latest numbers, from 2014, 63 percent of non-citizens are using a welfare program, and it grows to 70 percent for those here 10 years or more, confirming another concern that once immigrants tap into welfare, they don’t get off it. The Center for Immigration Studies said in its report that the numbers give support for Trump’s...

President Trump called on Democrats on Tuesday to vote to fund his proposed border wall, saying the project would pay "for itself in two months." In a tweet, Trump claimed "our Country losses 250 Billion Dollars a year on illegal immigration." Trump's appeal to Democrats comes ahead of a homeland security spending fight to avoid a partial government shutdown originally slated for Friday. House Republicans filed a stop-gap bill to move the deadline for a partial shutdown to Dec. 21 to accommodate for the funeral of former President George H.W. Bush, who died Friday. That bill is likely to be...

EL PASO, Texas (CBS4) — Hundreds of migrants turned themselves into Border Patrol agents Monday morning in the Lower Valley near the Ysleta port of entry. Border Patrol officials said this incident is becoming a pattern as apprehensions for the Border Patrol sector continue to rise... “The last number that we had was upwards of 400 individuals that crossed in the midway area and the Ysleta port of entry,” Romero said. The Border Patrol also said it’s unusual for large groups like this to present themselves in urban environments instead of more rural communities.